William Davies: The Tories have lost their ideology. Now they are merely the party of resentment

By Dilip - Tuesday, October 01, 2019

NB: Are we, in fact living in an entire era of resentment, or resentment mixed with illusory nostalgia? Listening to the several shouting brigades active in all corners of the globe, it would seem to be the case. At a time when we most need to speak with sobriety and listen with respect, all that the 'leaders of the people' seem to be doing is destroying the very possibility of speech. A new generation is emerging though, and hopefully will show the thugs and climate-deniers their place. DS

The Tories have lost their ideology. Now they are merely the party of resentment
What does the Conservative party stand for in 2019? If you survey the central tenets of Tory ideology from the past 50 years, it is hard to find a single one that is still intact. The party of business is hellbent on undermining access to an export market of half a billion people. The party of law and order is now raging against the judiciary – with senior Tories being regularly asked whether their government intends to obey the law. The party of “family values” – “back to basics”, as John Major put it – has now fallen for the charms of a famous philanderer, who is currently being dogged by questions about how his “close friend”, Jennifer Arcuri, was awarded £126,000 of grants during his time as London mayor. The party of the establishment is provoking a constitutional crisis, angering the Queen and expelling some of its most distinguished MPs from its benches.

So perhaps the more pertinent question is whether there is anything the Conservative party won’t stand for. But the answer to that isn’t much clearer: the Johnson-Cummings strategy depends on cultivating the sense that they will say or do anything to achieve their ends; their only principle is a refusal to rule anything out. And to the extent that they face any constraints, these are not coming from inside the Conservative party.

The Conservatives are now to the Brexit party what cocaine is to crack: more acceptable in polite company, but ultimately made of the same stuff. Surviving Tory moderates kid themselves that the problem is all with Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, as if they hadn’t fallen into line behind a man famed for dishonesty and recklessness. They kid themselves that the party is still theirs, as if it hadn’t swelled with Brexit fanatics with no interest in governing. The fact that Amber Rudd resigned simultaneously from the cabinet and the Conservative whip clarified the stakes: the current toxicity belongs to the party, not any individual strategist or leader.

For a party that had been losing its political and philosophical moorings for many years, Brexit has become a substitute for ideology – something more potent and emotional than just a vision for a good society or a policy manifesto. For Conservative party members and many MPs, Brexit is almost theological: it is a crusade requiring sacrifice and suffering. It is not possible that the reality of Brexit will ever live up to the divine version, while parliamentary democracy now appears hopelessly compromised in comparison with the pure “will of the people” that the 2016 referendum is believed to have revealed....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/tories-values-brexit-johnson-cummings

see also
JC Kumarappa's Gandian economics
The politics of nostalgia by SAMUEL EARLE

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